Canterbury’s Law: Pilot
By fred | March 11, 2008
(S01E01) So last night was the big premiere for the new Fox legal drama, welcoming the return to television of Julianna Margulies. I didn’t know much about the show before I went into it, I had never really seen anything but one promo clip, and all I read what an interview of Margulies on how glad she was to be back on TV and working with executive producer Denis Leary (Rescue Me) on this new project.
Oh and I had also read that some people talked about her character, Elizabeth Canterbury, as pretty much a female version of House. So, was it anything like that, was she any close to our favorite doctor, or not ?
To make it quick : No, she’s not. I don’t think you can really see any connection with House here, not the character nor the show. Yes, you can sense the influence of the Denis Leary team, this show does have somewhat of a Rescue Me feeling to it, and not just because of Canterbury’s drinking, the fact that she’s cheating on her husband, or how she got punch in the face.
But the problem with this show is that really, it’s nothing more than yet another legal drama. I get it, following the path of Fox medical hit-drama, it’s a show that’s more about characters than it is stories. But maybe it’s because I love the show so much, or because I’m no medical expert (though I’m no lawyer either), but at least the plot on House are usually pretty good. Yes, we all know it’s all gonna be resolved in the last minutes of the episode, not sooner, and often when House sees something unrelated to the case yet his magical brain makes a connection and understand something, sees (part of) the case with a new light, a new approach, and bang: case resolved, the patient isn’t going to die after all.
Still, getting there is pretty fun. And if course, he’s freaking House ! But here it wasn’t hard to see who was guilty and who wasn’t, and everyone & everything, it’s all things we’ve already seen again and again in about any other legal drama out there. There’s pretty much no originality anywhere, not in the DA crossing the line, not the Canterbury “going the extra mile” and asking her client to lie, in court, so that she can get what she wants and win the case.
You just wish everything wasn’t so obvious. Oh, and that the show and Canterbury weren’t so self-conscious, too. “I sleep the sleep of the righteous.”
It’s really nothing new or that exciting/interesting to have Canterbury having lost her son, and most likely never got any justice over it. So now she’s fighting to ensure that everyone gets justice, now she’s willing to cross the line and put her career in jeopardy for the sake of her client, so that some partner can remind her that she won’t save nobody if behind bars. And of course she asked her client to lie in court so that she could get what she wanted, the guilty father to come and testify.
And we had already been shown that he was obviously guilty, and violent, and that he’d love nothing more that to throw a punch in her face. But he did not, not when he had a chance to do so with no witness, of course he waited to be in court, so that he could follow his punch with an admittance of guilt, of course. And all she had to do was to come close and tell him what she had told him before…
Alright, this show isn’t that bad. No really, it’s not all bad and it has potential I guess, but this episode focused way too much of trying to sell us the character of Canterbury as they wanted us to see her, instead of just focusing on the case, and making us see how she is. Don’t tell us, even worst have her tell us that she can rip someone’s throat out even though she loved them, if it’s for the benefit of her client.
The cases need to be stronger, I would really like it if she was also willing to cross the line when the client is guilty, and she knows it, and she needs to loose, too. And it really wouldn’t be a bad idea to give her a team of actual character, not empty puppets who just stand there and have no personality, no presence, that barely exists at all. Except for answering the phone and handing over a few files, what are those people really able to do ? Who are they ? Can they even have an opinion ?
I wasn’t impressed with the show, but it wasn’t really bad either, and if the writing gets better it could grow into something interesting I’m sure. But as it was in this episode, it’s nowhere near, say, Damages. Now that’s great TV!
Posted in Reviews
Shows: Canterbury's Law
